NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 4 – President Uhuru Kenyatta has signed into law five parliamentary bills at State House, Nairobi.
Among them include the 2022 Supplementary I Appropriation Bill (Supplementary Budget), the 2021 Copyright (Amendment) Bill, the 2020 Kenya Deposit Insurance (Amendment) Bill, the 2022 Industrial Training (Amendment) Bill, and the 2019 Employment (Amendment) Bill.
The newly signed Supplementary Budget unlocks a total Sh139,7 billion exchequer funds for use in drought-related interventions; security operations; election preparedness; fuel stabilization; and settlement of pending bills among other pressing public needs.
A sum of Sh34,4 billion from the Supplementary Budget has been allocated to the Government fuel stabilization programme aimed at cushioning Kenyans from high cost fuel prices occasioned by the worsening global energy crisis.
On security operations, an additional Sh950 million has been set aside for police recruitment to boost the number of the security enforcement officers in the country ahead of the forthcoming general elections.
Based on IEBC’s submissions, the Supplementary Budget has allocated an additional Sh8,8 billion to the electoral body to enable it to sufficiently prepare for the August 9th polls.
“On drought mitigation, the Supplementary Budget took into account the various ongoing Government interventions and allocated additional resources as follows: Sh1.4 billion to the Ministry of Defence for the Kenya Meat Commission’s livestock uptake program; and Sh1.2 billion to the State Department for Devolution for direct mitigation efforts,” StateHouse stated in a statement sent to newsrooms.
Other drought related allocations include Sh2.4 billion to the State Department for Social Protection, Senior Citizen Affairs and Special Programmes to cater for relief food to support families affected by drought; and Sh0.9 billion to the State Department for Arid and Semi-Arid Lands for drought management activities.
“To augment the ongoing roll out of the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC), the Supplementary Budget allocated Sh6.9 billion to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to cater for teacher remuneration, training and related expenses,” Statehouse added.
The Ministry of Education was assigned Sh2 billion in the Supplementary Budget for the construction of additional classrooms to ensure a smooth transition from 8.4.4 to the new system.
On the other hand,Sh4.9 billion was allocated to the NG-CDF so as to ensure that ongoing infrastructure projects in the constituencies are completed as scheduled; and other social programs such as issuance of bursaries continue uninterrupted.
President Uhuru Kenyatta also signed the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, also signed into law which introduces a new formula in the sharing of revenues collected from ring back tunes.
Section 30(c) of the new Copyright law provides as follows: premium rate service provider shall be entitled to 8.5 percent; telecommunication operator 39.5 percent; and the artist or owner of the copyright shall be entitled to not less than 52 percent of the revenue.
On its part, the new Employment (Amendment) Act gives reprieve to job seekers by requiring employers to only ask for clearance or compliance certificates “upon granting an offer of employment to a prospective employee.” Previously, prospective employees were required to avail such documentation during job application.
The Bills were presented to the President for signature by Solicitor General Kennedy Ogeto at a brief ceremony attended by Treasury CS Ukur Yatani, Attorney General Paul Kihara and Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi.
Also present were Leader of Majority in the National Assembly Amos Kimunya, Chairperson of the Budget and Appropriations Committee in the National Assembly Kanini Kega and Clerk of the National Assembly Michael Sialai.
